Wine Term: Negotiant

Ever had a bottle of Charles Shaw Wine? This is the most common negotiant wine on the market. 2 Buck Chuck, is bought extensively at Trader Joe's markets and it is a blend of grapes from different winegrowers. Their extras.

Which winegrowers? If this type of winemaker treats his producer with respect, you will never know. Otherwise, he is likely to lose his grapes. No producer of fine wines wants a cheaper competitor with their own grapes on the market.

So, remember, this is someone who negotiates to buy grapes from quality winegrowers and uses it to bottle under their name but they do not grow their grapes. Sometimes, they will even go so far as to buy and blend the leftover wines from quality growers.

The opportunity there is that you can get oak aged wine, at a lesser price. Enjoy the ones you can find. There are much better ones than Charles Shaw , including Bolla and Origin.

Bolla produces some great wines from Italy. There Amarone is their premier wine and they made this great wine famous in the US. I like their Chianti Classico. Good cherry flavors and easy to drink with friends.

Origin makes great wines from throughout the world. Most of their wines have flavors typical to the grape they are named for and are from the regions they are best known for. I especially like their Carmenere, but do not like their Malbec. It reminds me of dubble bubble. That bubble gum you got when you were a kid and only tasted good for a minute before turning into a hard, nasty rock in your mouth.

Hopefully this has given you some inexpensive alternatives to finding new types of wine. As well as helping you find a new wine region that you can start to explore. Because if you like the wines by these negotiants chances are good you will like the same types of wines from their region of origin.

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